Auto shows are great for getting a glimpse into the future of the car market but, unfortunately, the coolest, most imaginative, most innovative concepts and designs often remain on the drawing board. Indeed, the automotive industry is a tough business and there’s only a small segment of the market willing or able to splurge on limited-production ultra-luxury cars. So, here are six futuristic concept cars we wish we could buy right now.

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View Caption+#2: Flying Cars

The ultimate litmus test for whether or not you’re living in the future is whether or not there are flying cars zipping through the skies. Well, here’s some good news: We’re getting really close. The TF-X from Terrafugia (pictured) will be a street legal plug-in hybrid car that has collapsible wings, retractable propellers, and is capable of driving and flying on its own in the event of an emergency.

Terrafugia

View Caption+#3: Super-Efficient Gas-Powered

Let’s face it: Electric cars are the future. There will, inevitably, be a time in which fossil fuels are too expensive and precious to waste on grocery store runs. In the meantime, however, super-efficient gas-powered vehicles will be a trend. And this is one trend that can’t catch on soon enough.

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View Caption+#4: Steam-Powered

Sure, steampunk has become a popular aesthetic amongst sci-fi aficionados, but could steam-powered cars really play a role in the future of transportation? It’s a long shot, but in a future where efficiency and fuel conservation are primary concerns, odd alternatives like steam could play a role.

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View Caption+#5: Smartphone on Wheels

Increasingly, car companies are working to close the gap between the technology on the road and the technology in our pockets—but they still have a long way to go. Concepts like the Toyota Fun-Vii, however, show a glimmer of that interactive, intelligent, driving future.

Toyota

View Caption+#6: Microcars

Everyone loves the growl of a powerful super car, but we all have to admit that one design does not suit every application. Life in a city, or habitual short-trip driving demands a very different vehicle than, certainly, the race track. This growing use case presents different requirements, though, than even the majority of sedans. Microcars are a smart solution to these real-world problems.

Hiriko Project

View Caption+#7: Amazing Electric Cars

That’s it, the time has come: We want amazing electric cars that are affordable, functional, and cool. The technology is mostly there, it’s time to make this futuristic dream a reality.

When Aerofex showed off its "hoverbike" almost two years ago, the California firm received a flood of emails from people asking when they could buy one of their own. Now Aerofex has unveiled plans to begin selling a commercial model in 2017 for about US $85,000 -- but anyone eager for a head start on living the "Star Wars" dream can put down a preorder deposit of $5000 toward the final price.

The commercial Aero-X design combines the ducted rotors of a hovercraft with the ease of driving a motorcycle or quad bike. Such a vehicle is designed to hover above the ground at maximum speeds of 72 kilometers per hour and at heights of almost 3.7 meters off the ground, allowing it to carry two people across open terrain without the need for roads. But the fantastical vision has only become possible because Aerofex has worked to conquer tough engineering challenges involving stability and control issues that plagued similar hover vehicles in past decades.

While we've witnessed the rebirth of the electric car, here are three other battery powered / electric forms of transportation we can look forward to.

Courtesy Elon Musk

"We’ve done a lot of work to learn how to remove the coupling effect," says Mark De Roche, chief technology officer and founder of Aerofex. "That’s the key for someone who only has motorcycle experience to be able to get on it and feel comfortable right away."

The "coupling" phenomenon comes up with both ducted rotor vehicles and open rotor vehicles such as helicopters. That means if a vehicle pilot pitches forward to go forward, the rotor vehicle may also turn left because of the aerodynamics involved in the spinning rotors -- a coupling effect that pilots must normally learn to counteract by adjusting several controls at once.

By comparison, Aero-X prototype pilots can steer the hover vehicle by simply leaning and using handlebar grips like a motorcycle. The current prototypes use so-called "knee bars" to detect the pilot's leaning direction, but the future Aero-X will likely just use handlebar grips for a more natural control scheme.

De Roche envisions the Aero-X prototype eventually being capable of carrying 140 kilograms of weight and running for about 1 hour and fifteen minutes on a full tank of gasoline. The vehicle's ducted rotors have a higher fuel burn rate than a helicopter's open-rotor design, but it costs far less than any helicopter or aircraft and is much easier to control.

Aerofex has filed several patents based on solving the stability and coupling problems that plagued early ducted rotor vehicles. One of the company's solutions includes having a shroud around the bottom of both front and back rotors to add an additional level of control for the vehicle's movements. If all goes well, the company plans to begin flight tests of the full Aero-X design by 2016.

Aerofex engineers also had to solve the problem of strong wind gusts. For that they took a hint from the quadcopter drones that have become popular among both researchers and robotics enthusiasts. Such quadcopters use ordinary smartphone chipsets that include gyroscopes and accelerometers to gauge the direction and strength of wind, so that an onboard computer can automatically compensate for the wind without human operators having to do anything. Aerofex used a similar tactic in their Aero-X prototype so that the hover vehicle automatically compensates for windy conditions.